Category: sustainability

for jeannettes

slowly toward a city across the harbor
dolls eyes look from thickets
wild ginger dewsteeps pathside
trout lilies greenyellow bottomland
in breathing footfall rhythm
bottlebrush grass laces remnant wood
wild-rye sews small streambanks
purpletop rattles unpaved road
in thinking breathful melody
nodding bur marigolds pool dark mirrors
sneezeweed runs ditches and marsh
frostweed mounds vacant lotmeadows
in warmingchilling chorded nervemuscle
inkberries assort waxwings
winterberries cluster robins
skunk cabbages unfold turkeys
in echoing faint chorus
this year is my passing song
my love the walking minutes

cove at sunrise
(lifelong wagners point resident and activist jeannette skrzcek died in 1998 from liver and colon cancer)

phone mesh

animal carcasses in alleys
poisoned cats bloodied dogs abandoned horses
sand and mud sedimenting into tunnels under streets
virtuous delusion
obscure good
wicked favor
stones sharp shards and sewage in sidewalks and roadways
oh from the sea that surrounds us
yellow copper stoppered with lead
ringing opens the seal
power appears in fog and smoke
speak civilly and firm with empathy and hope
cast your net
give the brightly colored fish to your sultan

city offices at sunrise
(the first 311 service in the united states was piloted here in 1996, with help from the department of justice community oriented policing services office, to reduce 911 call volume—in 2000 call data started being analyzed to evaluate performance of city agencies)

in the eye of turtle island

when i withdraw
look out at my back spreading like the life of a mountain
i’m not sure the bipeds will learn i am here in some way to save them
from surviving only as machine

herring run at sunrise
(the mid-atlantic turtle & tortoise society incorporated in 1997 using po box 22321
In zipcode 21203—turtles have been on earth for a quarter of billion years, schist in herring run for half a billion, and gneiss in herring run for a billion)

underlying patapsco

floating in the streets on the water
a time mirage
the beginning of value trust exploitation
winds earthfired and solar sweep across
chappedsmooth hands dangle and grasp from walking torsosleeves
their notions predatory desperate seek dissipating warm glow
rocks that burn
pieces of stars
promises
molded earth
minted metal
words that echo in dopamine
calculated payments
breathing dying debtors to the sun

church window at sunrise
(alex brown and sons, the baltimore-based first investment bank in the united states, was sold to bankers trust in 1997 and absorbed into deutsche bank two years later—brown memorial park avenue presbyterian church on park avenue and lafayette streets memorializes george, alexander’s son)

really big show

singing strutters drift in from deep ocean
whistling stomping
squealing plucking
barking blowing
chuckling serenading
wailing swirling
in blue orange black white
gathered separate focused diffused
sculpting color
windows doors poles trees cars cobbles frame
water flowing exploded fading
shops steps
assembling arranging
out of unseen sayers seers
neighboring culturing
pause
play
flying in timelight

fell street at sunrise
(the creative alliance started out as the fells point creative alliance from margaret footner’s café on fell street in 1995)

noplace

rescued superfluidities
coursing through shared pipes stopping combined gloria conservation mass
blistering superchilled chemicals proud and seething
defying the simple air surrounding
lording atoms
great continuance uncommoded
serene industrial sharing
shall congregate and mingle in fellowship
letting a long beautiful utopian scream

caol pier at sunrise
(in 1995 the fairfield peninsula was designated an ecological industrial park, and industrial symbiosis spontaneously and completely transformed the city, region, and state)

brown to bright

sun light thru simple path
objectively condensing
immersing in salty nitrogen oxide smog
soaring intrinsic rainbows
living cells absorb and illuminate
radiating color buzzing art and industry
saturating dull forgotten fields
in slow steady streaking detox

brownfield at sunrise
(in 1995 twelve sites on the fairfield peninsula were reclassified from superfund sites to brownfields, creating an opportunity for redevelopment grants the city never managed to use to transform its long history of abusive jurisdiction—as it now fails to seize the opportunity to use brownfields and, in cooperation with the port administration, collocated port facilities to provide clean, sustainable, just power to the entire state of maryland)

pando human

walk into a forest trembling gold silver yellow
see six thousand tons ringing breathing as one grain
taste pollen blooming ten thousand springs
walk forty thousand feet of dispersed light with each step
hear forty thousand engines working in whisper
smell eighty thousand sun orbits as one second
meaning has found you

cosmic galaxy egg at sunrise
(the american visionary opened at 800 key highway in 1995 with the tree of life—andrew logan sculpted cosmic galaxy egg in 2004)

crane buddha and toad

an august early morning
in city brick asphalt soil grass and trees julyabsorbed
a red brown black toad poised unglazed as clay
on a knee of buddha turned away from his gaze
from high unseen rare untimely
a grey crane alights on buddhas head
a glorious globe unfolding in the sun
ball of medicine paper burning with color and flowering stigma
crane folds its wings in predatory prayer
toads beautiful heart beats faster and broken
buddha smiles
after eating an ant and lichen toad hops to arbor vitae
crane loosens and swallows a stone of clay and spirals away
buddha remains serene eroding
cast toad into the city and crane into the world
to share hunger
for wet muddy reeds and rice in unsplit unfused atoms of drenching rain

buddha at sunrise
(in 1994 artist, teacher, and peace activist noriko ikaga formed the statue of buddha near dickson and lafayette streets—act for peace http://www.icanw.org/)